


And the Wicked Sleep Well at Night

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Game [3]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Gen, Man-to-Man Chat, Meeting of the Minds, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:46:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Iris," Zsasz murmurs, "is many things, things that have always been there for you to see, Jim, but you didn’t look.  You didn’t want to know.  You didn’t want to see her for who she really is.  She and I are one of a kind, made to exist in the world together with nothing to separate us.  She is mine, and I am hers."</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Wicked Sleep Well at Night

**Author's Note:**

> In terms of timeline, I can't especially say where this falls. Probably just somewhere between episode 1 and 2, without the discussion of the Arkham breakout.
> 
> Anyway, for those who remember Victor and Jim's first interaction during "Tiger, Tiger" (see "Prayer in Blood"), I give you the follow-up. I've been wanting to write this for a very long time (probably too long, actually), and I'm relatively pleased with the result. I will also say this segment includes elements of Victor's origins in the comic books, including tribute to one of my absolute favorite lines that really is a perfect self-assessment for this character. Please enjoy - and comment! :)

If one believes the old adage, there is no rest for the wicked. In Gotham, those old words of wisdom have a slightly different meaning. Actually, they have a completely different meaning, and are twisted left and right, mangled a few times, and then stomped on. In Gotham, the wicked sleep well at night, the good are few and far between, and the rest just drag themselves through one day into the next by the skin of their teeth.

Jim Gordon had always wanted to be one of the good. Even knowing their existence to be rare and always in jeopardy, he’d wanted to be a rarity. He’d wanted to stand on the same level as his father, proud and strong, a shining beacon in a pit of darkness. The idea had been that of an idealistic youth, a little boy with grand dreams. He’s clung to it as long as humanly possible, but now he can’t. He’s watched that dream fall to the ground and shatter into irreparable shards. This city is sick, broken, twisted. Gotham is a cruel mistress, a vicious vision, a merciless and sadistic lover who torments more than she is kind and compassionate.

The discovery of Gilliam Loeb’s body only further engrains this wicked reality. The clinical and surgical execution is not, in and of itself, the most grotesque vision; he has most certainly seen worse. It’s the message that speaks volumes without a voice and makes itself known in imagery alone. The former commissioner was attacked in his home, following the swift and merciless gutting of his appointed security staff. His throat was slit, and he was left to bleed out on the floor. This was cold, ruthless…and personal. No one goes through this much effort and takes this kind of risk to kill a man without a reason. Someone had a grudge to settle with Loeb, and they delivered.

It will be a long list, Jim is sure. He knows he is probably at the top of the list, but he isn’t responsible for this and, for once, no one is throwing him a suspicious look. The other officers and coroner technicians scouring the house for evidence and packaging up the remains with poorly-guised disgust are focused elsewhere, not on him. And Jim is left wondering, thinking to himself. There must be an explanation, some way to determine who, exactly, would have possessed both the vengeful rage against this man _and_ the brazen determination to kill him.

One way is old-fashioned police work: leave no stone unturned, examine every detail, look at any security footage available, find the person responsible and bring them to justice. It’s a wonderful, resounding declaration of justice over vengeance, hard work being its own reward. The other way is to quietly step out, make a direct trek down into the Theater District, kick down the door and cut down anyone in his path, march right up to the throne of the almighty, and demand to know why.

He knows the latter would be the fastest and likely the most efficient way. Knows it, feels it within his gut like a poison, and clenches one fist around his holstered gun. Memories pulse from his fingertips to the back of his skull: the recoil of his weapon firing, bullets exiting in rapid fire, and the sound of flesh splintering and blood spitting outward. No. _Never again._

From his jacket, a quiet vibration breaks concentration. His phone. Perhaps it’s Essen, inquiring for any details, anything that might be gleaned immediately from the scene. Perhaps it’s Lee, trying to make sure he’s alright, an impromptu welfare check, or maybe she just wants to talk. The distraction, whatever it is, will be welcome. An idle mind, these days, is a cruel thing.

“Gordon,” he answers, stepping away from the masses, mostly for privacy, and also for the gentle peace of solitude. He knows he isn’t the only officer of the G.C.P.D. to carry a secret, but the logic of such reasoning doesn’t make an impact. He has his own secret now, and it weighs heavy like an iron shackle, branding him, marking him, and he wonders how long it will be before the rest see what he already does. How long it will be before his sins are exposed like an ugly ink stain across the image of Gotham’s white knight.

“ _Good morning, Jim._ ”

The voice in his ear trickles down, compacts, freezes like ice, and settles heavy in his gut with a violent blow of recognition. It takes only a few seconds, but time drags longer than that, in his mind and through his body, before he remembers the ability to move, to press himself into the bedroom wall, the one nearest the window, and even longer before he recalls the ability to speak.

“What do you want, Zsasz?” he whispers, eyes darting across the room, waiting for an inquiring fellow to come around the corner, waiting to hear his name called out, while his mind desperately tries to make sense of this.

“ _To talk._ ” The voice sounds relaxed, at ease, casually amused. “ _After all, it’s been so long since we saw each other. We should catch up more often._ ”

“I’m short on time.” Jim growls, defiance clawing its way back to the surface, returning with a vengeance on the wings of inspired memories. Namely, this man stalking him through the precinct, putting a bullet in his gut, and most especially talking about his daughter as though she was some prized possession. “So talk fast.”

“ _Yes, I’m sure you are._ ” The smirk is painfully audible in Zsasz’s voice. “ _I do hope you’re going to give Mr. Loeb some dignity and just burn what’s left. He isn’t really fit for an open viewing._ ”

The cold weight in his gut grows, and now it seeps out to every limb. He can’t move, and his ability to breathe is limited at best. The words churning in his ear, circulating through his mind, fill in all the pieces. It’s supposed to be what he wants, what he needs. The ideal circumstances for any case, especially murder, is an open-and-shut investigation, an identified perpetrator, and a confession. He has all of that, right here, at his fingertips, but it doesn’t make him feel better. It makes him sick.

“Why, Zsasz?” he asks, fingers curling tight around the phone, crushing it to his ear. “He did what he was supposed to… _why_? Why would you—?”

“ _Has anyone ever told you_ ,” Zsasz declares, sounding exasperated, as though he’s deeply tired with every word coming from Jim’s mouth, “ _you don’t think outside the box? It’s all black and white for you, Jim. You think things never change. You think people never go from one season to the next. It’s a most unfortunate way to live life. So very stationary. So…inflexible. You should try loosening up a bit._ ”

Silence follows, his mind struggling to work through this, understand, make some kind of sense of the senseless, and then he leans heavily against the wall. “Tell me why, Zsasz.” He whispers, staring unseeing at the far wall. “Why did you kill him?”

“ _Were I the responsible party here, the more accurate description would be annihilated every last trace of his pitiful existence._ ” The other man says, after a thoughtful pause; he sounds so calm, so detached, unaffected…this is beyond Cobblepot’s devil-may-care shrug for what individual may or may not have met their untimely end by his command. This is the man who commits the acts, who rips into living flesh, leaves the victims to bleed out, and has no emotion to show for it. “ _Really, Jim, expand your vocabulary. People might start questioning your upbringing._ ”

The hand clutching his phone is shaking, violently. “You’re sick, Zsasz.”

“ _Au contraire,_ ” the smirk is gone; now, he sounds very serious, solemn, addressing a serious misstep that needs immediate correction, “ _I, Jim, am free. And to return to your previous point, I would love to take credit for this, but I can’t. That honor belongs to a…mutual acquaintance of ours._ ”

The next blow he feels resembles a punch, low to the gut, crushing ribs into lungs, over and over again. His free hand clutches the wall, seeking support, seeking balance when his world has now been rocked violently by one thought, one sudden declaration spoken between the lines: _She’s alive._

_She killed someone._

_No_ , he shakes his head, even just to himself. She wouldn’t. He’s lying. Iris wouldn’t, couldn’t…she _didn’t_ do this.

“Where is she?” he demands, voice shaking, grip slipping beneath tremors, fury churning tight in his throat when silence greets his question. “Tell me where she is, Zsasz, and if you’ve hurt her—”

“ _—and we’re back to this old song and dance._ ” The hitman mutters; he has a sudden vision of Zsasz rolling his eyes, just to complete the insolence. “ _Alright, Jim, here’s the deal: I’m tired of this conversation. On the phone, anyway. So why don’t we have a little chat, face to face, man to man, like civilized people, and I’ll see if I can get a few things through that impossibly thick skull of yours._ ”

“Zsasz—”

“ _Tick, tock, Jim._ ” Zsasz interrupts, again, practically crooning at him. “ _I won’t be down here forever._ ”

The words trigger something, an instinct buried deep and yet second-nature by now, after all these years. An impulsive, rapid succession of movements: his eyes dart out the window, for a fleeting moment meet a pair of dark blue and take in the icy satisfaction curling thin lips, watch their owner step away and stroll casually down the street, an ink dot amongst the masses, and then he runs. Pushes past questioning officers, dismisses the protesting calls of those he calls brothers and sisters in blue, hurtles through the door, and repeats the pattern through crowds. Mindless, irrational movement, always forward, never looking back, just running. At some point, his fingers curl tight around his gun, and it rests heavy in his hands, fingers locked in place, ready to aim, ready to fire…ready to kill.

No. _No, wait_ , he can’t. He has to know where Iris is.

He skids to a halt, eyes sweeping in frantic strides, as the target vanishes. His senses are alert, adrenaline hot in his veins, looking, seeking, and then, as though appearing from the thin streams of smoke and smog curling upward in the air, find blue eyes again. Zsasz stands, perfectly still, black clothes glaring in the pale daylight, at the corner. Waiting. Then, head tilting in a mocking gesture, he steps away. Jim follows, pace urgent once more, heart beating violently in his chest. _Iris. Iris, where are you?_

“Zsasz!” he calls out, rounding the corner, pace slowing for deliberate forward steps, gun aimed and ready, eyes sharp, seeing nothing beyond the figure in black who pauses at the shout, then slowly turns in place. He’s relaxed, completely without care or concern for the gun aimed at his head. Though, after Jim’s finger curls around the trigger, he lifts an eyebrow.

“Really, Jim?” he sighs and shakes his head. “I said, talk like civilized people. _That_ ,” he nods at the gun, “is not civilized. Are you really going to make a fuss again, like last time?”

_Last time…_ his grip clenches, trigger finger barely exempted from such reflexes. “Where is she, Zsasz?” he demands, continuing forward, waiting for one of the hitman’s hands to reach for his gun—one of two, holstered at mid-torso—and give him a reason to fire. “Where’s my daughter?”

“Safe.” The other man answers, as though it is the most obvious and requires no further explanation. “She’s safe, with me, as she always is. But then again…you’ve heard that answer before. And you didn’t believe it then, did you?”

His hands are shaking; he can’t aim like this…he needs to calm down. He most definitely won’t show this man weakness, or anything that appears as much. “What did you do to her?” he asks; the unwanted images inspired from the moment he first heard Falcone’s assassin speak her name, with such familiarity, with such covetous yearning, churning upward from dark corners of his mind. “Tell me what you did. At least have the decency to admit it.”

The other eyebrow lifts, bare strips of skin where a defined brow ridge should be arched high and leaving wrinkles visible on the forehead. “So,” Zsasz’s voice lowers, a hiss, a growl, a breath barely audible above the sounds of Gotham moving about, ignorant of the tension coiling thick between two men, the two standing so opposite of one another, in every possible way, save for the single thread connecting them, “that’s what you think. All this time…you think _that_ ’s what happened between us.”

_Yes_ , because it’s the only thing that makes any sense about all of this, the only logical—sickening though it is, and it most certainly is sickening—conclusion to be reached. But something has changed in the blue-eyed gaze, and while it doesn’t move Jim’s stance, every instinct in his body is on edge, alerted, and when Zsasz takes three steps forward, it’s only through stubborn willpower that he doesn’t respond with one backwards.

“Like I said,” Zsasz breathes, eyes glittering, and Jim suddenly feels he is staring down a rattlesnake, coiled tight, ready to lunge, ready to strike, never hesitant to kill, “you never think outside the box, Jim. Black and white, when you live in shades of grey. The monster spares the little princess, and the only thing she could have used to buy freedom is her body. The scars are so deep, so damaging, that she always returns to him, a classic example of Stockholm’s Syndrome. Nothing more. Just a sick, twisted case of an evil person twisting the fragile mind of a poor little girl."

Two more steps forward; they’re too close, and Jim’s finger twitches around the trigger. “You ask for a favor from the King of Gotham, one end holds of his end, the other holds up his, and everyone’s happy. Until, tragically, our dear former commissioner is found dearly departed in his humble abode, via unmentionable means, and the only logical conclusion is Penguin decides to unleash Don Falcone’s rabid dog for one last nightly run.”

Three more; the barrel of his gun is pressing to Zsasz’s chest. Blue eyes are piercing down into his, daring him to pull the trigger, to end this, right here, right now. “You never see beyond your carefully-constructed little world, Jim.” He breathes. “Time to wake up. Time to see the reality.”

He could do it. Pull the trigger, one bullet to the heart, and it’s done. He can find Iris on his own. He doesn’t need this man. He doesn’t. He can…he could… “What are you talking about?”

“Time for you to see how the story really began,” the other man murmurs, and his gaze changes; softens, just slightly, with something that resembles nostalgia tracing the edges, “beneath a cold winter sky, when the moon brought a broken little doll to life, and with only a few words, she tamed the monster sent to kill her. A handful of words, and she inspired him to spare her, to let her live…to raise her, guide a child to become a woman, watch over her, protect her, and destroy those who tried to hurt her. And then, because all good stories must have a grand twist, the woman inspired the monster to do something else. Something he’d never done before. Something he never once believed would ever be possible. Something he’d sworn to never do.”

Pull the trigger. Just pull it, make him stop talking. He doesn’t need to hear this. He needs to know where Iris is. Just pull it. _It’s not like you haven’t done it before_ , a voice taunts from his sub-conscious, and he nearly cringes to hear it.

“She made him fall in love.” Zsasz finishes, with a thin smile. “With her."

“You don’t love her.” He spits the word like the curse it is. “You don’t even know what that word means.”

“I’ll thank you to not make those assumptions, Jim.” The assassin replies, eyes flashing a bit. “Iris and I grew up in very similar worlds, you know. In another time, we very well could have met sooner, perhaps even been engaged in our later years. Ours is a place of great wealth, power and success, regal galas, socialite gatherings, a shimmering world of jewels and money…everything a child could possibly want. But there is a difference between her and I. _Her_ ; world was cold, ugly, rotted from the inside out, with parents who would sooner see each other dead in a ditch. _My_ world was warm, kind. I had two parents who gave me more love than you could imagine, devoted on me, ensured I had only the best in the world. I suffered no trauma, no abuse, no torment. I was very deeply loved, and I loved my parents. Very, very much.”

His mind spins, wildly. His world is rocking without balance, without a rock or solid ground to steady the broken foundations. And Zsasz can tell. He can see understanding in the other man’s eyes, and he hates it. “Black and white, Jim.” Zsasz murmurs. “I must have suffered as a child, right? That’s the only thing that makes sense. Except it doesn’t, because I wasn’t. I was loved, and I loved those who loved me. My past has nothing to do with my present. I kill because I choose to. Because I want to. Because people in this world think way too much of themselves and their worth, and they need a reality check. Don Falcone sent me to Marcus DeLaine, to send a message, and I had every intention of doing so.”

At some point, he feels a slight pressure on his hand; two gloved fingers are pressing down, guiding the gun away, resting limp between them, while the other hand casually slips into a pocket, and withdraws a switchblade with a smooth flourish. “But Iris changed me. It took me a few years to recognize it, and a bit longer to fully appreciate it, but she did. You see, Jim,” the knife twirls idly between them, blade gleaming, dancing before each other’s eyes, “she’s different. She is brilliant and beautiful and every red-blooded man in this city would sell his soul to have her in bed for one night, but she’s also special. Very, very special. She sees me. She sees me, she calms me, and she sets me free. No one else ever has. I tend to scare people, just a little bit. But, despite all my efforts to the contrary, I cannot scare her. And believe me, I have tried."

“No doubt.” He whispers, jaw tight, voice laced with contempt. Instinct tells him to lift the gun back to position, aim, pull the trigger, and just make this _end_.

“But Iris…” he despises the way Zsasz breathes her name, as though paying homage to a goddess, “She is so very different. She does things to me. Makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. And there is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe. The little worm who tried to rape her in college, who tried to take what was mine to take? Dead, tossed out like garbage, missing a few of his parts, but he won’t be needing them. The Russian crime lord who graced our fair city with his presence, just to settle an old vendetta with her blood? One bullet, through the back into the heart, dead and done."

He rests the blade between Jim’s eyebrows, taping idly without pressure. “I always imagined it would be this way: a tiger in the night, striking out when the fair princess was threatened. I always imagined the blood would be on _my_ hands. I even tried to keep her from that world, away from the ugliness. There even was a time I believed her incapable of it. I thought she was too pure. Too innocent."

The blade’s tip taps, twice more, and Zsasz smiles, white teeth flashing, blue eyes gleaming. “But to see it with my own eyes, I realized how foolish I was. She is a true artist, creator of fine art. Such grace. Such finesse. Such elegant prowess. Her work with the commissioner was…simply exquisite, don’t you think?"

"You,” Jim whispers, hands trembling even around his gun, fingers trying to work again, trying to remember how to hold a weapon and pull a trigger and…and do _something_ , “are a liar. Iris would never do that. She’s not a killer. She’s not _you_.”

"I have plenty of faults, but lying isn’t among them.” Zsasz replies, pressing the tip down; the skin breaks, a thin dribble of blood runs down Jim’s nose, veers off to the left, and then falls loose. “As for Iris, she is many things, things that have always been there for you to see, Jim, but you didn’t look. You didn’t want to know. You didn’t want to see her for who she really is. She and I are one of a kind, made to exist in the world together with nothing to separate us. She is mine, and I am hers.”

The smirk returns, flashing teeth at its corners. “And you, Jim, are _alive_. You are alive because Iris wants you to stay that way. I promised you would, and I keep my promises."

"I could shoot you.” Jim says. “Right here, right now, I could shoot you."

"I could take this knife and push down until I become closely acquainted with your brain tissue.” The other man replies, smoothly, with an idle shrug. “There are lots of things we could do, Jim. That doesn’t mean they’re to be done.”

“I won’t let her go.” And he won’t. He can’t. He owes it to her, to his daughter, to save her from this… _God in heaven_ , this man doesn’t even have a proper title to his name. “I will never leave her in your hands, Zsasz.”

The other man has the nerve to roll his eyes, even as he’s pocketing the knife. “Ever the hero.” He mutters, unimpressed. “Fine. Cling to your little complex as long as your heart desires, Jim. Just remember, when it breaks apart in your grip, when the truth comes to hit you right between the eyes, and your precious delusions come crashing down around you…I did warn you.”

His fingers are heavy, tired, weary, and the gun nearly slips from his waning grip. Zsasz takes three steps back, turns away, then pauses with another backwards glance. “Iris sends her regards.” He murmurs, with that hideous smile in place, once again, eyes glimmering in shadows and teeth too white, too sharp beneath parted lips. “I’m sure you two will be seeing each other again very soon. _Beregi sebya._ ”


End file.
